Karachi school punishes minor girl for wearing mehndi on hands

Harassment in schools is not new. Videos and pictures of administration members harassing and torturing students have often circulated on social media and in the latest of such incidents, it has emerged that a six-year-old girl in Karachi is being punished daily in school for having mehndi (henna) on her hands.

Taking to Facebook, the girl’s father, Arsalan Tariq, shared the punishments the minor is inflicted with every day, adding that his daughter is mentally stressed out due to this.

“I need your views,” Arsalan began. “My six-year-old daughter, a student of Class 1 is being punished on daily basis due to henna (mehndi) colour on her hands which she put on 11th Rabiul Awwal.”

He continued, “Punishment: No participation in assembly, she keeps standing the other side while the other students sit; mental harassment by scolding her before joining

the class; no breaks; daily notice verbally and on-diary both.”

He attached a picture of his daughter’s hands and the notice she receives every day which stated, “Mehndi: If a student applies mehndi, she will be punished daily till mehndi removes.”

Arsalan further shared: “When she comes back to home, she doesn’t share with us and her face impression is totally change when we see the diary and she starts weeping that she don’t wanna go to school the next day.”

Expressing his plight, Tariq wrote, “I have no option to cut-off her hands from her body as I am unable to remove the henna from those small and sensitive hands.”

While Tariq did not reveal the school’s name, he shared that the school is in Gulshan-e-Maymar, Karachi.

Tariq’s Facebook post was shared by scores of people and people pressured the agitated father to reveal the name of the school so that action can be taken against the perpetrators. Facebook users also presented Tariq with a variety of suggestions ranging from going to speak to the school’s principal to changing schools to filing a torture case against the administration. They also encouraged him to write to the MNA of his area.

However, there were some users who agreed with the fact that mehndi should not be allowed in school and that Tariq should have been more careful.